Redmayne is remarkable in 'The Theory of Everything'

November 13, 2014 7:37 PM

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Occasionally — well, rarely — you encounter a performance so fine that it overtakes the bland movie surrounding it. “The Theory of Everything” is a rather dreary biography of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, one of the most intelligent humans alive. And yet the wonderful character actor Eddie Redmayne plays the role so vividly that the film’s shortcomings stop mattering. His turn is amusingly playful and emotionally touching. To call it excellent is an understatement.

The picture follows Hawking from the promise of his youth to the seemingly insurmountable challenge of his middle age. It takes us through his beginning as a Cambridge University physics prodigy, through his crippling motor neuron disorder, through his marriage to fellow student Jane White (Felicity...